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In my area we have no access to Japanese shihans, just local people who have practiced aikido for years. When it comes to tanto practice and taking it away from uke, it always looks... slow and kinda sloppy.

Should I be worried that aikido in general is not effective for unarmed taking away tanto, or believe in aikido and that it is powerful enough to take away tanto safely, just I haven't seen it yet?

If the answers that come back are something along the lines of, "you need to study professional knife fighting", then I will take that as a 'no, aikido is not effective (for that)'. Hope you guys can open my eyes.

In my area we have no access to Japanese shihans, just local people who have practiced aikido for years. When it comes to tanto practice and taking it away from uke, it always looks... slow and kinda sloppy.

Should I be worried that aikido in general is not effective for unarmed taking away tanto, or believe in aikido and that it is powerful enough to take away tanto safely, just I haven't seen it yet?

If the answers that come back are something along the lines of, "you need to study professional knife fighting", then I will take that as a 'no, aikido is not effective (for that)'. Hope you guys can open my eyes.

Charles,

I am in Mississauga and tanto randori is a regular part of our practice since we do Tomiki Aikido. My students who are Correctional Officers and Bodyguards have used our Aikido to take away knives quite efficiently in the past without personal injury.

Please note however that the attackers were not trained in knife systems like Kali, Escrima etc. I personally believe that the tactics required in those situations would demand more than a bare handed approach to provide some level of personal safety.

Barring a skilled FMA practitioner however, my guys have fared pretty well. If you want to know more PM me or check us out - www.omai.ca.

I have friends who train in pekiti tirsia kali, and given what I have seen, I would prefer not to have to go up against people like them even with a knife in my hands, let alone barehanded.

This is a very true statement.

Needless to say, I truly wish most aikidoka, whether they be Yoshikan, Shodokan or whatever, but especially Aikikai, re-evaluate their goals in their training.

Aikido is not a complete system, it seriously lacks responses to contemporary methodologies. One must integrate striking/kicking, grappling and knife/stick based arts into their Aikido training, in order to be a well rounded martial artist. Firearms is another area all together.

If you have no real-life experience in any of these areas, do not delude yourself, your peers or your students that Aikido is martially effective in all situations.

I think aikido is not complete, but it is still great. It is not required to be complete to be great. How would you readers feel if your dojo brought in a kali expert once a week to show knife disarming training? Would you want that?

I think aikido is not complete, but it is still great. It is not required to be complete to be great. How would you readers feel if your dojo brought in a kali expert once a week to show knife disarming training? Would you want that?

Is whatever Kali teaches about knife disarming that different from Aikido? Are there really any magical body movements that allow you to safely take a knife from a knife-wielding attacker?

Personally, I hope I am carrying a good, sturdy umbrella in that situation, or at least can grab some nearby object like a chair.

Failing all that, of course it is better having practised some movements than having practised nothing.

Fwiw, there was a nutcase here in Akihabara a few months ago who stabbed 17 people with a dagger on the street before being apprehended. The video shows that the cops kept him at by with sticks... nothing about fancy "disarmament" moves. (I suppose in countries like the US heŽd been perforated by a bullet.)

Aikido contains all of the tools you'll ever need to take something out of some ones hand. Ikkyo nikyo, sankyo, yonkyo, gokyo, rokyo, and kotegaeshi are the very foundation of disarms. They are universal to all weapon taking systems, although they have different names in different systems.

Now using them in a high pressure situation is another story. Aikido as a system provides the information you need, however you must train in high stress, unknown, freeform situations in order to learn to use them. This is however, true of any system.

Coming from both Aikido and FMA, IMHO it all depends on who is attacking and who who is disarming. I have experienced it working and I have experienced it failing. Its not the system, its the person. If you have concerns, cross train.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!

Coming from both Aikido and FMA, IMHO it all depends on who is attacking and who who is disarming. I have experienced it working and I have experienced it failing. Its not the system, its the person. If you have concerns, cross train.

Quite correct. I think it is a mistake to blanket ALL Aikido as being ineffective against certain threats or to say that ALL FMA will come out on top in a knife encounter. It really comes down to the individual imho.

We also can't assume a person's training methods in detail from the name of the general method he studies imho. That creates a large opening for surprise in my experience. Underestimate no-one.

These are in fact aikido guys, my seniors in my dojo before they went into pekiti. They've seen kote gaeshi before, believe me.

I wasn't disputing that.
I was saying that what you said was the beginning of a pissing contest - i.e., 'Well such and such a person could do this to you'...to which someone else replies 'Yeah, well they could never do that to this person...' and 'round and 'round.

I think the saying 'It's not the martial art - it's the martial artist' applies, is what i'm saying.

I am not saying "I managed to do the nearly impossible task of successfully applying a core Aikido technique against a trained knife fighter, because I am a serious badass."

I am saying "If somebody like ME can pull of a kote gaeshi against one of these Kali guys, then true Aikido (anecdotal Aikido actually) is effective for disarming."

I succeeded because I managed to connect with my partner, take his balance and not give it back, and move way off the line. These are basic Aikido concepts that, if they exist in the system of Kali I trained in, they must be upper level concepts taught after some time training.

You will not take away a knife without severe/fatal consequences from any skilled knife fighter regardless of what martial system you use...

You can train up for it... get really good at it... and practice all day long... but all you need to do is make one mistake.

Thank God most folks who try to use a knife don't really know how to...but If I see some dude with proper knife fighting form in front of me well... It's safe for me to assume it's no longer about "disarming."

Yes, Larry, a Kali friend of mine showed me that once. Yes, the effective distance is pretty big for a Kali guy. So basically I'm screwed up close, and I'm not that well off even with some distance between us. Pretty much FUBAR, either way, it seems to me.

I seem to recall several knife camps that demonstrate what serious users can accomplish with the proper knife and skills. I would find it hard to believe that you are taking that knife away...

I think a drawn and trained gun at 15 feet is effective for disarming a knife. I think aikido training is more effective at self-preservation than no training.

We cannot even de-bone our chicken meat any more. The simple fact is that even with "training" most of us, if ever confronted with a knife, would not be competent to defend ourselves against a knife let alone use a knife.

Also, I would put forth that we [aikido people] often think about weapons "taking" as the active removal of a weapon from our partners. I have been looking more closely at a different interpretation of weapons taking that involves your partner releasing the weapon to you. Under this interpretation, it is more plausible that a skilled weapons user may release the weapon to your possession when it no longer benefits him to continue holding it.

I have met far too many competent knife and sword people to continue to believe that weapons taking actually has anything to do with me taking something from them.